CHAPTER FIVE

      Who knew it’d be so damn hard to find a car outside Beijing?

      Bolan had put a couple of miles between himself and the checkpoint, staying off the main roads and avoiding anyone he saw coming his way. More than once that had necessitated ducking into the lightly wooded area near the smaller road he was traveling. One time he’d had to drop to his stomach in some tall grass as a trio of giggling girls dressed in what looked like school uniforms walked by a few yards away.

      But the farther he got from the countryside, the closer he got to the more populated suburbs—and the harder it was to locate a suitable vehicle to steal. In the country, the only vehicles available were tractors and bicycles. In this area it wasn’t that there weren’t any around, it was just that vehicles were all under lock and key, kept in some kind of building, whether that was a cinder-block garage or a makeshift shack of tin panels.

      While Bolan wasn’t worried about breaking into a place to steal a car, he wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible about it. It was hard enough being a six-foot-three-inch man in a country where the average height was five-seven. Add that he was a Caucasian, and it meant that any sighting of him doing anything illegal would be the kind of thing that would definitely stick in the minds of the locals.

      The countryside had grown quiet again and Bolan resumed his approach toward a cluster of houses in the near distance. With luck, he could find something here to take him into the city.

      The houses were simple, one-story structures with white walls and red-tiled roofs. A moped was parked outside the front doors of several homes. Keeping his head down and his cap brim low on his face, Bolan surreptitiously checked the driveways and lawns of each house as he passed.

      A door slamming made him tense and he ducked behind a tree while casting around for the source of the noise. On the next block, a man in a short-sleeved shirt and black tie, and carrying a briefcase, trotted out of the largest house in the area—it had a small second story on it—and headed for his car, a medium-size, well-used sedan. Bolan looked closer and saw that the trunk was ajar, held shut by a length of white cord. Wherever the man was headed, it had to be somewhere more populated, where Bolan could acquire better transportation.

      A shout sounded from the doorway and he looked back to see a heavily pregnant woman in a house coat holding what looked like a sheaf of papers in her hand. The man ran back to the doorway and snatched the papers, getting into a brief discussion with his wife, Bolan surmised. But his attention wasn’t entirely focused on them—he was moving toward the car.

      The lightly forested grassy area he was creeping through ended in a small green hedge that led almost up to the back end of the sedan. With the couple still talking about something, the soldier crept along the hedge to the trunk, reaching it as the couple’s voices got louder. The rope securing the broken trunk was tied in a simple square knot. Bolan untied it in a few seconds. Now came the tricky part—opening it wide enough to get inside without attracting the couple’s attention. He carefully eased it open just enough for him to squeeze inside, folding himself around the small, bald spare tire and thanking the Universe that this guy didn’t keep his trunk full of crap.

      Bolan had just gotten the trunk lid back down when he heard approaching footsteps crunch on the gravel driveway. Clenching one hand into a fist—just in case he had to subdue the guy—Bolan waited for the car to start moving, wondering if the man noticed that the back end of his car was a couple inches lower now. The car door opened then closed, and after a few seconds, Bolan felt the car begin to move underneath him.

      He kept hold of the rope so he could keep the trunk from opening, yet still give himself enough of a space to view the outside. His initial suspicion had been correct—they seemed to be heading deeper into the city. Crammed like a sardine into the dusty, smelly compartment, this was by far the worst accommodation Bolan had found on his trip so far. The car had definitely seen better days, and once it accelerating to about thirty miles per hour, the rattling over the washboard road jarred his spine and ribs unmercifully. But he was making a lot better time, and wherever they ended up, it had to be a place with more possibilities than what he’d seen so far.

      As long as he doesn’t get a flat tire, I’ll be fine, he thought as the car rattled and swayed onto a major arterial highway, giving Bolan hope that he would be able to find what he needed near the driver’s final destination.

      An hour later the car creaked to a stop on a narrow side road. The driver spent a few minutes wedging his car in among rows of similar sedans, then got out and walked down the street toward whatever office building he worked in. Bolan gave him five more minutes—in case he forgot something in his car—then eased the trunk open and looked around.

      He found himself in what looked like an anonymous business section on the outskirts of the city. The streets were lined with small shops selling everything from knockoff clothes to electronics. Pulling his cap low, Bolan checked his cash and hit the first electronics store he found.

      Four stores, forty-five minutes, a lot of pointing and around fifty thousand yuan later, Bolan was set electronically, with four cheap smartphones, three small tablets, several items of clothing and a backpack to carry everything. The phones were burners; he would use each one for a day, then destroy it. The tablets were along the same lines. Changing access accounts would be a pain, but it definitely beat spending time in a Chinese prison for cyber espionage.

      Finding the nearest cyber café, he got a cup of black tea and sat in an isolated corner to set up a phone and a tablet and log on to the internet. Despite being knockoffs, both devices worked well. Using an innocuous local provider and webmail account, Bolan sent a brief message confirming his safe arrival to an address that would send the message bouncing around the world until it arrived at a secure server outside the United States that could be accessed by the Stony Man team. Then he leaned back, sipped his weak tea and waited.

      Seven minutes later a reply came, along with an encrypted data file. Bolan downloaded it, making sure he could save it to the tablet’s hard drive, then turned off his internet connection. Only then did he open the file.

      Still aware that the local government could trace his downloads if they somehow got on his trail, Bolan opened the file only long enough to commit the information to memory, then trashed the data, overwriting it several times, hoping that nothing could be recovered. Once finished, he got up and headed outside to find a car, since he had to travel about five miles south-southwest in the next two hours to pick up a package.

      Normally he would simply take a taxi to his destination. However, since his destination was